


At the Water's Edge

by AncalagonDrakka



Series: The Fish and The Bird [1]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Barbossa may or may not be human, Gen, Implied Relationships, Kinda, Origin Story, Storytelling, Why is the Rum Gone?, it's too damn cold, more on that in later installments, nobody is happy, the apples are gone too, wood is not a good insulator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 07:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11436198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AncalagonDrakka/pseuds/AncalagonDrakka
Summary: On the journey to Davy Jones' Locker to bring back Jack, Barbossa tells a story. Elizabeth is more inclined to believe him this time around.takes place during awe





	At the Water's Edge

**Author's Note:**

> Time to try my hand at actually making my characters talk more. In other works, I usually use description over dialogue and I wanted to challenge myself. The series is based off artwork I made a little while ago that I may post for this if I ever figure out how.  
> Anyway, please enjoy!

Elizabeth didn’t think she’d ever been so cold in her life, had never understood the meaning of cold until now. She’d seen a man accidentally break off one of his own toes because they were so frozen. She’d stopped shivering hours ago and her hands had gone from blue to ugly grey. Looking at them now made her think of a corpse’s hands. A pair of spindly, weather beaten hands covered her own, making Elizabeth blink and look up.

“Best not keep to the cold for too much longer,” Barbossa shot her a wry look before nodding to the grate covering the stairs. Elizabeth tried to frown, but her face was so numb she couldn’t be sure if she’d succeeded or not. After a token protest, she sighed and walked down the stairs with Barbossa after kicking the grate back. Before they could slide it back into place, Barbossa’s monkey hopped down the steps after them. 

There were a few other sailors below deck, each taking a turn out of the wind and snowfall. The two of them sat stiffly against the hull, though for Barbossa it looked more like a barely controlled fall. The monkey—Wee Jack, if she’d heard right—chirped and scampered up the captain’s arm to huddle against his neck.

“I suppose you’ll want my help getting up again when the time comes,” Elizabeth snarked. She got a withering glare and a scoff in response.

“These legs still serve me just fine.” He said back, though his sneer quickly turned into a shadow of a grin. The easy bickering was something she’d gotten used to while traveling with Barbossa. She appreciated his dry wit and sarcasm a lot more now that they were allies. Honestly, Elizabeth could even admit to herself that she could see the two of them as friends; not that she would ever say that aloud, and never in front of Barbossa. Pirates, Elizabeth noticed, had a ridiculous aversion to talking about their feelings. Or at least talking about them in any way she could piece together so far.

For a while, they sat in comfortable silence, watching the other sailors as they came and went. Elizabeth grimaced as the feeling started coming back to her extremities in the form of a bone deep ace. From the way Barbossa was rubbing his own hands, he wasn’t faring much better. 

“What I wouldn’t do for a drop of rum or a bite of apple,” he grumped, reaching up to rub Wee Jack’s head with his finger.

“If we had any rum or apples left, they would be frozen solid by now.” That would only be a bigger torment than none at all, to have them in sight but be unable to consume them. She supposed that’s what it had been like for Barbossa and his crew for the decade they were cursed. And like Tantalus, from the ancient Greek myth.

“There must be some way to forget this awful cold,” she said at length. Elizabeth turned to watch the captain and his monkey, tilting her head in askance. “How about a story?”

“A story?” Barbossa repeated, a hint of incredulity in his voice. The last story he’d told her had been met with a rather blunt dismissal. Though she looked a little sheepish, Elizabeth nodded and folded her legs to lean in a little closer. The way her eyes widened reminded Barbossa just how young she was. He sighed and rolled his eyes, but he supposed there would be no dissuading her.

“And which story should I be telling ye, then?” He had picked up many tales over the years at sea. A considering look came over her face for a moment, and then a wicked light came into her eyes. Barbossa was immediately wary. Even Wee Jack had shrunk back a bit.

“Jack,” She said. “Tell me how you met Jack Sparrow.”

At that moment, he very nearly regretted indulging her curiosity. It was a complicated story at best and he would have to be careful not to reveal too much. It took the old pirate a moment to gather his thoughts and find a place to begin. Barbossa leaned his head back against the wood of the ship, closed his eyes, and sighed.

“When I met Jack Sparrow, he was naught but a boy. I found him on a capsized long boat in the open water; no oars, no food, and no fresh water. He’s been in the boat prying barnacles off the hull of his father’s ship when a storm hit and knocked the boat loose. Or so said he. If I was smart, I would have left him as he was. But there was something about that boy that drew me curiosity.”

When he opened his eyes, Barbossa looked very far away, like he was lost in his memories. Elizabeth knew well enough the kind of pull Jack had. He was the reason she had left her life as a noble lady.

“I stayed, helped him right his boat; went with him to follow his father’s bearings. I remember well he talked so much and asked so many questions I thought he’d die for lack of breathing, but I talked as well, told him what I dared when I could get a word in.” He chuckled, a bitter smile on his face. “But for all I was careful with my words, he had me figured in an instant. Jack is the clever sort, I’m sure ye know.”

“Clever enough to cheat death all these years.” Elizabeth agreed. She and Wee Jack both jumped a bit when Barbossa barked out a laugh.

“Oh, no,” Barbossa said once he’d resettled the monkey. “You’ll get no argument from me that Jack cheated death more than his fair share, but it was by uncommon good luck and the work of a string of ever weary minders following behind him. Cleverness is what got him into trouble most times. It be what got him tangled up with me.”

“How do you mean?” Elizabeth asked as she shifted into a more comfortable position. As she moved, she became aware that parts of her clothes seemed less frozen than they had been, and upon closer inspection, Barbossa’s hair and Wee Jack’s fur were beginning to thaw. When she glanced up to his eyes again, she finally noticed the agitated look he was giving her.

“I’ll thankee to hold yer tongue, Ms. Swann. The story won’t get told in full if ye interrupt. Breaks the sway of the words on those who listen. So just… listen.” Barbossa huffed and shifted against the wood before picking up the threads of the old story. “Anyway. Jack ignored warning and reason, as he does. As we journeyed along the water, the fool bound us together by the ancient ways.”

“Wait, you mean like a marriage?”

“What!? No! Naming! Naming, ye—” Barbossa threw his hands up and tossed his head back against the hull with a dull thunk. Wee Jack shrieked at being jostled, jumping and tugging at the captain’s clothes to show just how displeased he was.

“Naming? I know names have power, according to the old fae tales, but you’re no faerie. You’re Hector Barbossa.” Elizabeth frowned and shot said captain a look that was equal parts confused and concerned. 

“Aye, I am Hector Barbossa, but before Jack, all I had was the seas of me birth and the colors of me features to be called by. Something to call meself as an individual. And I was free, with naught but the tide and me own whims to carry me. Ye must understand, Ms. Swann—to name something is to bind it to ye. Permanently.”

“And you say Jack bound you to him.” Even for a sailor’s tale, it seemed farfetched, but after Elizabeth had seen the undead crew of the Black Pearl and Barbossa’s return to life after clearly being shot dead, then maybe name binding wasn’t so impossible.

“Jack bound me to him,” Barbossa confirmed with a sharp nod. “And every day since, I’ve felt a longing, a pull to follow where he leads.” She could hear both wistfulness and bitterness in his voice as he spoke of the bond that lead him to guide Jack across the ocean to the port Jack’s father had sailed to.  
“Did you follow Jack into port to find his father?” Elizabeth prodded when the story fell into a lull. 

“No, not then. I dared not touch land that day. I went back to the sea and I didn’t see Jack Sparrow until many a year later. We met again in Singapore, not long after I lost me ship, the Cobra and after I’d taken to being Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea, mind. T’was then that Jack’s father charged me with his boy’s life. I watched him grow into himself, take command of his own ship—the Pearl, of course, though she went by a different name then.”

“That was when you became his first mate?” Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of awe. Barbossa had known Jack for such a long time. There was history between them. Barbossa nodded and went back to petting his monkey.

“For years I sailed under him, content enough to be close to him and to the sea. But now, even when time and death and bad blood have distanced us, I feel that tether more sharply that I can remember in all the time I’ve known him.” He sighed, faraway look coming back into his eyes as he brought a hand to rub absently at his chest. They were quiet again for a few more minutes. Barbossa had finished his tale and Elizabeth was left to mull it over. The question of Jack and Barbossa’s meeting had been answered, but more and more questions began to crop up. 

Elizabeth opened her mouth to ask her questions when the ship rocked and shuddered violently. Barbossa was on his feet and pulling back the stair grate in the blink of an eye. The voices of the sailors reached her ears as the pirate captain made his way up the stairs, shouting orders before he had even set foot on the top deck, Wee Jack chirping on his shoulder. Elizabeth got up and made to follow, glaring when the monkey turned around to wave and bear his teeth. 

Any more stories would have to wait. Through the frozen mist and sea spray, Elizabeth could just make out the edge of a giant waterfall. They had reached the end of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed. I plan on making more installments later on with more detail about Barbossa and his relationship to Jack. This was mostly to test the waters and see if people are interested. Tell me what you think!


End file.
